This video that went viral a while back has a soft spot in my heart. It is not only because this 3-year-old kid is connected to his naturally compassionate heart, but because his mother was humble enough to listen to the wisdom of her child's truth.

Reflecting on this month's Jivamukti focus (What's the Use), isn't humility after all having a beginner's mind? We may think that just because we have lived several decades and learned some skills and picked up a few life lessons, we know how life is supposed to work. We may think we know better, we may cling to old ideas of how we have always done things, and insist we know what we are doing. Watching this video, I feel that someone with less humility would have reacted another way. The child might have been taught speciesism, that some animals are made for food. The child might have been lectured on tradition and so-called norms. The child might have been dismissed for being picky or immature. But because his mother has a humble heart, she was able to see how innately compassionate her son is. She was able to agree that yes, we indeed need to take care of animals and love them, instead of hurting them and eating them.

Humility is to have that courage to see things from a fresh perspective, to listen and learn from the wisdom of another, to accept that others are also our teachers. Humility is not so much learning, but more of unlearning. We unlearn social conditioning that makes us cynical. We unlearn fear that keeps us stuck. We unlearn our arrogance and stubbornness that makes us think we already know everything. Humility is to have the mind and heart of a child, to continuously learn, to consistently be open to the wisdom the world teaches us.